


His Mornings

by thronesecured (castlestormed)



Series: Love the Job [3]
Category: Subarashiki Kono Sekai | The World Ends With You
Genre: Breakfast, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Mornings, Partnership, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-27
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-05-28 23:30:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6350020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/castlestormed/pseuds/thronesecured
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is one of his mornings: she comes in to make him breakfast, they talk about mundane things, and he remembers why he's always, always been smitten.</p>
            </blockquote>





	His Mornings

He slept in fits these days. Couldn't really understand why. As soon as he got home, he didn't even bother using the bed; he just crashed on the couch, switched on the tube, and watched till he dropped off into oblivion.

It was a monotonous existence that he was not quite sure he enjoyed, but, hey, it was routine. Kariya could deal with routine. And it was never too long till he fell asleep.

The couch was probably the reason for the fits; it was too small to hold his length. Parts of him were always dangling off the sides—legs mostly, and an arm. When he woke up, he usually found himself at the brink of falling over. He always heard the electronic sounds coming from the television first, before feeling that impending sense of vertigo.

Despite the trouble, he really couldn't bother with moving to the bedroom. It was too far.

And anyway, Uzuki always came in first thing in the morning, and waking up to the sounds of her movement was one of the things he looked forward to in this second life. If he was in his room, she wouldn't bother coming in to wake him. For one, his quarters were small and there was literally not much in there except for the bed, which occupied most of the floor space, and a small closet where he kept his clothes. For another, Uzuki was very proper in that military-esque way. She drew the line at certain things, and in a most vehement manner if he was up to the task of pushing her buttons. It was endearing, really.

Today, he woke up to the sounds of her frying something in the kitchenette. She heard him moving about in his sheets apparently, because less than a second later he heard her call: "Kariya? You up?"

She didn't know this but he had made it a rule – nay, a _commandment_ \- that his first words of the day to her had to be matched with the visuals. He got to his feet, rubbed the sleep from his eyes and shuffled over to the kitchenette, where she was at the stove. Her back was to him, but she glanced over her shoulder, probably about to call to him again.

She stopped when she saw him, and he slouched against the wall.

"Mornin'." He yawned.

"Morning, Sleepyhead," she replied. Once she'd caught sight of him, that seemed to satisfy her enough that she'd returned her attentions to the stove. "Sleep well?"

"Not really." Not in the mood to elaborate, he busied himself with studying her profile. So today was layers day, huh? She was wearing about three blouses (that he could tell of) in various shades of red. "Are y' wearing that shirt I got you?" he asked, noticing something familiar about the othermost layer.

"The one from last week? Yeah." She'd turned again to give him a brief look at the full ensemble, complete with a sweeping ta-dah gesture that caused the hand that held a spatula to spatter cooking gunk all over a wall.

He tried not to laugh, waved off the "Oops, I'll clean that later", and smiled a little once her back was turned. Aside from the layers, Uzuki was in a denim skirt, a short one that showed off her legs.

Mmmmyes, the visuals.

An impulse to be near her had him walking over to the stove. She was back to cooking when he reached her side, and despite having deduced what was in the pan from the aromas wafting his way, he asked, "What're you makin'?" Because aside from proximity, he just wanted to hear her voice.

"An omlette," was her slightly distracted reply, and then she went on about how she discovered a recipe at the back of a can of tomatoes and how delicious it turned out to be when she had tried it at home.

Kariya had always found it easy to read people, so easy that it became second nature to pay close attention to things like speech patterns and nuances. But when it came to Uzuki, he switched off that calculating part of his brain and simply listened. Something about doing that just felt _right_ to him.

"Do we really have to go to work today?" Nowadays he asked this question just to see that little wrinkle on her nose when she frowned. Today, though, there was a different reaction.

She slid her arms around his waist and looked up at him through those baby blues. "Kariya?"

She was never going to find out how that took his breath away. Never. And yet he had a sneaking suspicion that she knew exactly what it did. "Yes?"

"Do you know _why_ we go to work every day?"

He thought a moment and replied, "Because life is unfair? You know what they say: no rest for the wicked."

"Silly." She pulled close to him in a way that he liked _very much_ , at least until she continued: "We work because it's boring if we don't! Work is fulfilling! Work shapes us up! If work didn't exist, _you'd_ be a total slob. "

There it was, the work-obsessed creature rising from within his partner's petite form, raising its ugly head and oggling its crazy eyes at him. He had a quip about it ready at the tip of his tongue, but he froze in the act of talking when the warmth around his middle disappeared.

"Hey..! Why're you stopping?" he whined when she returned to the stove with a most business-like air.

"Didn't you hear the last part, Koki? You show hints of _becoming_ a slob and it's bye bye Uzuki."

"Bye bye Uzuki, huh?" Now was probably not the best time to resume the cuddling. He settled for leaning back against the counter instead. "Y'know, in a way, that's kinda true," he mused. "If I stopped working, I'd run out of life points, and then I really wouldn't get to see you anymore."

He was just voicing out a casual thought, something he did often around her, so he never expected any kind of reaction.

She drew in a sharp breath and glanced at him. "Don't even _joke_ about something like that...!"

Here was another thing that made him smile today. This case was unintentional but he knew there was a reason why he liked baiting her; much of it was often very revealing.

"It's not a joke, it's fact—" he leaned in and kissed her temple "—so you can bet your ass I'm never gonna stop working."

Her lips compressed and for a minute he wondered if he should brace himself. But the cloudy expression cleared as quickly as it had come. "I don't know if I should hit you right now or not," she said finally, irritated and ever-so-slightly red. "Go take a shower already. I'll fix you some bacon to go with this."

"Bacon? You're the best, sweetheart."

"Of course I am. And I'm the best you'll ever get, so stop dawdling and get clean."

"Aye, aye, Cap'n."

"And Kariya?" He was at the doorway already, but he paused and turned around just in time to see her heave a sigh. "If you finish early...I _guess_ it's okay if we stay in a little. There's something I wanted to catch on tv anyway." She threw a sharp look at him from over her shoulder, "--but _not_ any later than that. Got it?"

The smile on his face widened.

 

.

_(Ah._

_I'm smitten_.)

.

 

His nights may be terrible, but at least his days made up for them.


End file.
